Feeling the universe

Oftentimes, in the goings-on,
I am in an endless search
of who this is, or, it is
that makes me unconscious,
unmoved of the movements
happening all around, within
the body I call myself, 
the mind I think is mine,
the spirit I sense, cannot see;
of who this is, or, it is
that makes me conscious
for a fraction of a moment,
of the regression of various
parts of the organs I have known
as my own; when the leaves of
the trees quiver, when the stars
rise, shine, set, and rise again,
I assimilate the experience;
the feeling in the being becomes 
me, it forms me, it bounds me,
beyond words, it sets me free,
makes me who I want to be.

All conflicts, arguments,
sense of judgements
appear like dust, meaningless;
births and deaths of truths and lies,
of days and nights, set, shine, rise
in the twinkling of my eyes;
only the feeling of completeness,
awareness of wholeness remains.

For a moment in the gap,
I feel the space, which is
also me; in time, the search
doesn't end, but it discovers,
away from the horizon of reflections
the feeling of the universe.

It's time to unlearn and retrain

The tongue, the eyes, the ears,
all trained to war with the
outside, ignorantly, for years.

With misguided warriors
such as these, how can we
end warfare? How can we
reinstate peace!

But the organs that are inside,
the livers, the lungs, the kidneys;
these are soldiers fighting it out
with their rhythmic art,
keeping their only world intact,
moving, up and about
with a winsome, healing heart.

It is either the soldiers or the
civilians who are the guineapigs,
the scapegoats of wrath,
greed, and power. How long
will this continue? Peoples
of the countries need to do
some real out-of-the-box thinking
to make the leaders understand
the futility of wars of all kinds
and the utility of peace, by all means.
We need to fight from within,
like the organs inside, so our nest
is pretty strong and safe to win.

It is time we unlearn to war
with our own reflections, the world
is like one human being, whose organs
like countries, continents, oceans,
seas, deserts, forests, mountains
rivers and tributaries are but our flesh,
bones, muscles, veins, and arteries;
we kill them each night and day
to weaken ourselves for petty selfish,
self-defeating, incompetent reasons
with processes, guns, and weapons;

It's time we retrain our disobedient
minds so we can strengthen, reconstruct
and rebuild our only living cottage; we
could help leaders unite to found a new
guild, to restore the dilapidated stage.

Play ball

I went to the beach
when I was a child;
played with the waves,
with crabs, their holes,
with the sand and the shells;
I have become old now,
but nothing has changed 
at the beach, it wants to
still play ball with me,
like a child.

The truth

We're scared of simple truths

So we seldom discuss death, 

We're ashamed of truths too, 

So we always mask ourselves. 

The logic we give for lying

Is that, they often help and heal, 

They're far better than saying, 

Bitter truths that ruin and kill.

With this example governed

We endorse tonnes of lies, 

Faking with skill is learned

Truth dies a thousand times. 

If this continues in the world

Violence will pollute the stage, 

Truth will just remain a word

False will poison the page. 

We fight with neighbours and friends, 

We see enemies everywhere, 

That we'd also die in the end

We don't seem to remember.

To be conscious of death

Is the key to bringing peace, 

We'd again be in sound health, 

Be free from warring disease. 

A passing day

 

The sun has set
on the western horizon,
the crimson sea, waving
to welcome the silver moon
that is soon to appear,
with its glowing affair;
there is a shift in the air,
the salty breeze, like a flutist
bringing out a humming
sound from the leaves,
birds are returning to their
nests with the same chirps
they left for the day;
in various branches, different
stories are hanging all over
the trees that, in their
twilight dress, are relishing
the last rays of the star –
a day is gone with the flow
like it did, years ago.

Worthwhile service

 

Worthwhile service

In this day and age
where news spreads like
wildfire at the click of a button
let us not share stories that’d
ignite hatred, anger, and incite
intolerance. The world is tired,
troubled, worried, overburdened,
bombarded with ferocious
insecurities, besides being bruised
and marred by the pandemic, the
uninvited guest that refuses
to leave the stage.

Like sad and grim requiems
there are many tales that can
heal the wounded hearts of
the listeners, for a moment they
can feel their lives are worth living
despite the catastrophe that’s pushing
the souls from the precipice, for
some seconds, men, women, and
children can feel a push upward
from their abysmal mayhem. 

Sharing incidents of kindness, love,
peace at this juncture will, to the misguided,
innocent victims, give solace and bliss;
as a writer, a storyteller, or even as a
modern ‘forwarder’, dispatching positive
experiences that speak of vim and
vigor, that uphold courage and resilience, 
says an emphatic yes to life despite the
odds is no less than a worthwhile service;
we could regain our garden beneath, our paradise above.

Twinkling stars

 

I have lost my stars
I tried to look for them
in the sky, a huge space
my eyes get lost in the 
crowd of blinking lights,
I wondered through the nights
as to which ones were mine
from afar they look similar;
beyond a point, I found them
all over the place, just when
I gave up the search, I decided
to let them be, I discovered 
them all, twinkling in me.

The servant-leader

 

With two eyes I can behold the world
yet, I am blinded by the light,
for I cannot see the sun;
where has it gone, I wandered on and on
with the search, the air got blurred
crowds of clouds overcast my brain
in broad daylight, I contemplated rain;
I couldn’t imagine that in the scorching
light the star cannot be seen, for in its
own light it effortlessly burns,
the service shines, its sign disappears,
thanks to its selfless work, a bit mundane
every corner of the earth lives again.

To have a glimpse I waited till dusk.
When the bestower, like a servant
finished the daily task, my wait was
rewarded for I saw the solitary leader
soon, calm and composed, the planet’s
only boon; I knew it’ll move into
another world then, though will
never keep us in the dark, as in the heaven
will rise the mesmerising moon.

I learned my most endearing lesson
how true leaders alone can serve
their nation by giving impartial light
to everyone, tomorrow there will be
another dawn, I will come again
and see the sun.

Words in action

Be in the now,
Fail, try, fail, try;
It's a game, a tug of war
Of the mind, where the times,
The past and the future
From both sides pull you down.

However busy, take it easy,
Not to lose your ground, stay-put,
Be with the now, head-on
Face the pulls, one on one
Until you have won,
You arrived at the milestone.

The pastime will engage
You, as you involve more
And more, you'll never feel alone
If you make it a fetish; this
Insane habit your own
By overcoming the laziness
Of your comfort zone.

Then you pleasantly realise
That actions are hidden inside
The words; that being in the
Present is the kindest gift you
Can present yourself, its presence
Fills your moments with success,
With a passionate charm!

When you sit and think deep
You’ll see that the words,
The three outstanding musketeers,
Own, now, and won are
Also these inseparable anagrams.

Walk away

 

If you want to find your way
to the holistic success of your
body, mind, and spirit,
you must practise to walk away
from negative emotions and rifts,
stay miles away from competitive
relationships, toxic friendships;
try hard and walk away
every minute of the day
from meaningless gossips,
judgements, and criticisms,
all wasteful tactics, they allure
you into abysmal failures;
walk away from all kinds
of hatred, anger, and conflicts
without any remorse or guilt;
practise, practise, and practise
you'll surely find your way
to your kingdom of happiness
if you walk away from these.

I want to live in a world

 

I can debate on whether
capital punishment is at all
justified, but I will nevertheless
let the law decide who'd be
hanged to death, who will not;
I don’t want to be beheaded
by a faceless, misguided, student
of a preacher; I want to live in
a world where my freedom
of speech is not regarded as an
offence by a stranger who would
severe me from my life.

I have the right to have my own
set of beliefs, even if it sounded
irreverent for some, I have the
right to exist despite my colour,
creed, language, if I see goddess
durga killing asura, I have the
right to think of her as unkind
and cruel until I am explained
that the killing is internal, not
external, that it’s a metaphor
for killing all the evils I hold
inside me, like a delinquent
fanatic; we need to kill the
cruelty that’s lurking inside
us, not slay people who have
different opinions of prophets
and preachers; the world is sadly
concerned with the teachers alone,
not with their teachings, if it were,
killings would hang the head of
believers in shame; it’s high time
scriptures that endorse killings
need to change; it is not a virtue,
it’s a crime, a poisonous vice;
for all fundamentalists, it’s wrong.

I want to live in a world where
men, women, children are not
murdered under any circumstances
by the iniquitous, the vicious, and
the wicked, all have the right to
live with their families and kin, in
their world where they truly belong;
I want to live in a world where
there’s breathing space for everyone –
theists, atheists, agnostics, liberals,
radicals, rich, poor, black, white,
and the weak and the strong.

 

Note:

Durga is identified as the principal Hindu goddess of war. The mythology centers around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity, and Dharma the power of good over evil. Durga is also a fierce form of the protective mother goddess, who unleashes her divine wrath against the wicked for the liberation of the oppressed, and entails destruction to empower creation. The metaphoric aspect negates any external war that is shown between the goddess and the asura; the war is rather internal where the evil forces need to be killed by the divine intervention, personified as Durga.

Asura is the intolerant evil force that kills the innocent.

Voici la traduction française pour mes copains français. J'avoue que la traduction n'est pas parfaite.

Je peux débattre, pendant des heures,
pour savoir si la peine capitale
est du tout justifiée, mais je vais
quand même laisser la loi
décider qui serait pendu jusqu’à la mort,
et qui ne le fera pas ; je ne veux pas
être décapité par un étudiant sans visage,
malavisé par un prédicateur ; je veux
demeurer dans un monde où ma liberté
du discours ne serait pas considérée
comme une entorse par un étranger
qui prendrait le pouvoir à la main
afin de me tuer. 

J'ai le droit d'apercevoir le monde
de ma propre façon, d’voir mes croyances
qui me sont chers, même si cela sonnait
irrévérencieux pour certains, j'ai le droit
d'exister malgré ma couleur, ma langue, ma foi ;
si je vois la déesse Durga qui tue l’Asura,
j'ai le droit d’interpréter la déesse comme
méchante et cruelle jusqu'à ce que la signification
de l’histoire ne sois pas m’expliquer - que le
meurtre est plutôt interne, pas externe, que
c'est une métaphore pour tuer tous les maux
que je détiens en moi, comme un délinquant
fanatique; nous devons tous tuer le la cruauté
qui se cache à l'intérieur nous, pas tuer les gens
qui ont des avis différents des prophètes et
les prédicateurs; c’est dommage que le monde
est tristement soucieux des enseignants, pas
de leurs enseignements, si c'était le cas, les
tètes des pratiquants seraient pendues de
la honte; il est grand temps que les Écritures
qui approuvent les meurtres soient changées;
ce n'est pas une vertu, c’est un crime, un
vice empoisonné, une intempérance absolue;
pour tous les fondamentalistes, c’est prétendu.

Je veux vivre dans un monde où
les hommes, les femmes, et les enfants
ne sont pas assassinés en toutes circonstances
par les iniques, les vicieux et les malins, tous
ont le droit d’habiter avec leurs familles et
avec leurs proches, leur royaume auquel ils
appartiennent ; je veux vivre dans un monde
où il y a un répit pour tout le monde – y compris
des théistes et des athées, des agnostiques,
des libéraux, et radicaux,  des riches, et des
pauvres, des noirs, des blancs, et des colorés,
des faibles et des forts.

Remarque:

La Durga est identifiée comme la principale déesse hindoue de la guerre. La mythologie est centrée sur la lutte contre les maux et les forces démoniaques qui menacent la paix, la prospérité et le Dharma le pouvoir du bien sur le mal. Durga est aussi une forme féroce de la déesse mère protectrice, qui déchaîne sa colère divine contre les méchants pour la libération des opprimés, et implique la destruction pour renforcer la création. L'aspect métaphorique nie toute guerre extérieure qui se manifeste entre la déesse et l’Asura ; la guerre est plutôt interne où les forces perverses doivent être tuées par l'intervention divine, personnifiée comme la Durga.

L’Asura est la force maléfique intolérante qui tue les innocents. 

কথায় কথায়

স্তব্ধ রও, চুপ করে যাও

চুপিসারে 'চৈতন্য হও'। 

কথা হলো কলহ সমান

শুধু রেষারেষি, হলাহল পান

শব্দের ওপরে জ্ঞানের অধিষ্ঠান

ব্রহ্মের অমূল্য, অপরূপ স্হান, 

ভয়, দ্বন্দ্ব, ঈর্ষা হবে নিশ্চিহ্ন, ম্লান

শান্তি নিশ্চিত, পাবে আলোর সন্ধান, 

নিশ্চিন্ত হবে দেহ, মন, প্রাণ, 

নিত্য কর পবিত্র নিঃশব্দ স্নান। 

স্তব্ধ রও, চুপ করে যাও

ঠাকুরের কথামৃতের ধারায়

থাকো রসে বশে, উন্মত্ত নেশায়। 

জর্জরিত কথার আবর্জনার বোঝায়

ক্ষতবিক্ষত তুমি কথায় কথায়, 

তাকে তাই দিয়ে চিরবিদায়, 

চির বিসর্জন, চুপিচুপি 'চৈতন্য হও'। 

Wander in wonder

 

As you wander in wonder, 

through the roads

rough, tough, smooth, 

their sudden turns,

you come to terms

with the fact that

they're all mapped within

the journey, as milestones;

you sense that nothing is yours, 

there's nothing you own;

yet, experiences you gather

as a passing traveller

connect you with the

imperishable star,

forthwith you discover

your untouched happiness, 

intact, in witness consciousness, 

you unearth who you truly are, 

in wonder when you wander

through the tracks and the ways

in the moving time and space. 

My hearse

I don’t know where I am
sailing, am I swimming in the 
various parts of my body, or in 
the parts of speech I read, write, 
or say, am I in my successes, or
in my failures, am I drowned in
the role I play; is it in the position
I find myself, or in the palace, or in
the hut I call my own, I do not know
where I stand; with my mask on, I am 
rehearsing the same script over and 
over again, I am navigating with the 
same props which I know will let me 
settle down, I may not be able to move
up, I remain in the dark, waiting, without
knowing, what pleasures await me on the 
other side of the night; for now, I dread 
the arrival of my hearse.